This report on the Return
to the Moon VI - 2005 meeting consists of a collection
of postings on RLV
News during the meeting and new comments
added afterwards from my notes. I also include links
to comments and articles posted by other attendees.

Ken Stratton impressed me with the news
that Caterpillar has done some fairly serious
studies over the years on extraterrestrial construction
concepts without NASA funding. In addition,
for earth construction they are already developing
fuel cell powered vehicles and stakeless, digital
earth-moving systems, which would provide a
good basis on which to develop lunar equipment.

Brant Sponberg discussed possible lunar
related Centennial Challenges in addition to
the current oxygen extraction competition. These
Challenges could include regolith movers and
VTOL demonstrator vehicles for lunar transportation.

Dennis Wingo said that 3-4% of the meteorites
that pounded the Moon over the eons were of
the nickel/iron kind that also include platinum
group metals. Since platinum group metal deposits
on earth are located on meteorite impact sites,
it follows that similar deposits should be found
on earth. Larry Taylor pointed out that the
eight sites examined by Apollo and the Russian
(unmanned) missions didn't spot any sign of
nickel/iron. Dennis responded that examining
eight random spots on the equator of the Earth
would also fail to find nickel/iron deposits.

Dennis's Moonrush book goes into great
detail on the potential of mining platinum group
metals from the Moon and how they would support
the hydrogen/fuel cell economy on earth.

Michael Wargo discussed the work of
the Lunar Exploration and Analysis Group (LEAG),
which will hold a conference this fall: LEAG
2005, Oct. 25-28, 2005..

Larry Taylor, as Jon discusses, gave
an informative talk about the interesting properties
of lunar soil. See Taylor's homepage
for links to resources about lunar development
such as this Lunar
Colony Lecture.

Wendell Mendell said that the lunar science
community had for decades felt left out of NASA
science priorities. Things brighten up a few years
ago when a major study of possible future science
missions included a lunar sample return mission
on the suggestion list. This got the attention
of NASA management who didn't know there was any
interesting science left to do on the Moon. The
VSE has now made lunar science a high priority.

Mendell also pointed out a difference between
"pure" science and the utilitarian science
that is needed to support development of lunar
systems and facilities to support human communities
there.

Hugh Arif's talk made it clear that Cisco
is taking space
Internet very seriously. There is currently
a Cisco "off-the-shelf" rounter running
on the UK-DMC satellite built by Surrey
Satellite and launched
in Sept. 2003:

A subcontractor is developing a rad-hard router.
GSFC and SpaceDev have also done space TCP/IP
development.

Cisco wants to convince spacecraft builders
to make TCP/IP the standard communications protocol.
All data, video, imagery, and voice on the spacecraft
should be merged into a packet stream for end-to-end
IP linking.

Dennis Wingo noted that for every ton
of oxygen derived from iron oxide in the lunar
soil (using Vapor
Phase Pyrolysis), 2.4 tons of iron will
be produced. This iron will be very useful for
structures and radiation protection. It won't
be very strong without carbon or other additives,
but making the slabs thick in the low lunar
gravity will ameliorate this problem. Aluminum
and silicon can also be produced from lunar
soil oxygen extraction processes.

Enabling Technologies - short presentationsMichael Mealling

This was a very interesting session organized
by Michael in which fourteen different people
came up sequentially to give 5 minute spiels on
their lunar related commercial enterprise or supporting
technology. (Actually, the session was split and
last four presented in the afternoon.)

Michael Mealling reported on the plans
by Masten
Space Systems to develop low cost VTOL vehicles
for suborbital flights. They want to serve the
K-12 and university education market with flights
in the $25k range, with up to 8 flights per day.
The technology is potentially useful for lunar
transport.

Dennis Laurie of Transorbital
reported on the status of the company's commercial
lunar orbiter project. He said the project is
still moving along but did not give a specific
launch date. A collaboration with Hewlet-Packard
is continuing. Development of some commercial
opportunities have caused delays. Currently, the
main commercial applications of the orbiter will
be science experiments (e.g. NASA paying for imagery
and video) and carrying memorabilia and cremated
remains. Longer term, he mentioned landers that
could provide a secure data storage service.

Hugh Arif of Cisco
said they will pursue the opportunities to supply
TCP/IP routers for spacecraft and lunar facilities.
He gave an example of a formation of nanosats
communicating with each other via Wi-Fi.

Gene Myers of Space
Island Group talked about their continuing
efforts to use Shuttle External Tanks to build
orbital habitats and solar power stations. He
also showed a shuttle
derived vehicle whose top stage is a DC-X
derived manned module.

Lee Valentine of the Space
Studies Institute discussed their project
with Prof. William Jewell at Cornell to develop
closed loop life-support systems to support in-space
habitats and lunar facilities. They need about
$2M to proceed to a Phase 2 study that would last
5 years.

Jason (? - didn't get his last name)
of GSFC worked in the group that was developing
a robotic service mission for the Hubble. The
group is offering its rendezvous and proximity
operations technology for various other applications
such as fuel depots and space tugs.

Derek Shannon of Red
Planet Ventures (founded by John Spencer)
discussed the Red
Planet Expeditions resort under development
in California in which people will experience
a highly realistic simulation of a visit to a
Mars base. They expect up to 250k "sim-nauts"
per year to pay for the experience. A Lunar variation
could be developed.

This session focused on how to build a business
based on in-space applications. Each of the panelists
gave their views and the approach of their company
to the challenge. Here are some notes from the
presentations:

David Gump said that for lunar and deep
space operations, the government is the only game
available at the moment.

He noted four models for space companies.

1. Classic government contractor with a cost-plus
contract and following exactly what NASA specifies.
2. Innovative contractor with fixed-price contracts
and payment for achieving milestones. (I.e. the
t/space approach).
3. Fully commercial firm doing their own independent
project.
4 . A nonprofit using contributed money to achieve
their goals. (E.g. AMSAT)

One approach is to pursue mixed government/commercial
applications such as a lunar rover that would
carry out scientific investigations as well as
allow for public remote control operations.

He thinks that by 2015, there could be 200-400
tourists going to orbit annually. He believes
lunar tourists will be about 10% of the orbital
number.

He noted that He3 could be useful for other applications
besides energy production such as various scientific
uses.

Rex Redenoure gave the history of Ecliptic
Enterprises, whose RocketCams have become
common on US launch vehicles, including the current
Discovery mission.

The company is a spinoff from the Blastoff!
project, which developed a commercial lunar
spacecraft and came very close to launching it
when it had to fold due to the dot.com bust. (It's
funding came from Idealab, a dot.com incubator
company.)

Ecliptic can be added to the short list of alt.space
firms that are profitable. It has had 122 contracts
since 2000. It only takes fixed-price contracts.

Charles Miller of CSI
focused on the VSE and strategies for lunar development.
He stressed that the goal must be permanent human
presence on the Moon. A key aspect of the VSE
is that it must be affordable and sustainable.

He suggested a Lunar Base Development Authority
model that would contract with NASA to build a
lunar facility and it would assign property rights.

If NASA follows an abandon-in-place process
for a lunar base, it will be a failure like the
Shuttle. The agency can't develop a facility that
only serves its own purposes and then expect that
it can just turn it over to a commercial operator
when it is done. Commercial considerations must
be taken into account from the very beginning.

The Q&A covered a number of issues such
as ISS commercialization, and lunar projects by
other countries such as China and India.

Brant Sponberg
(NASA
Centennial Challenges) - announcement of a
new challenge plus a description of NASA's new innovative
partnerships program.

Robert Goehlich reviewed the pluses and
minuses of international collaborations. He noted
the duplication of efforts such as the various
spaceplane prototype development projects and
the success of cooperation with Arianespace.

On the other hand, international projects tend
to cost more since, for example, contracts must
be distributed to each participant rather than
going to the lowest bidder, regardless of its
location.

Bob Richards reviewed his experiences
as a Canadian businessman dealing with space projects
in the US. ITAR has become a significant hurdle
producing delays and costs.

This was quite an informative session on the
complexities of space property. Berin first gave
an introduction to the ISLP (Institute for Space
Law & Policy) and then led a Q&A with the
panelists on space property issues.

Berin Szoka, head of the ISLP, said the
institute will be formally launched in September.
It seeks "to aid in creating the legal regime
of free markets and property rights that will
allow private enterprise, supported by sound public
policy, to open the space frontier to all mankind."

Initially, it will be a "virtual thinktank"
that produces white papers and other resources
in support of various space policy initiatives
and issues. Eventually, though, it will have a
real "brick & mortar" site in DC.

Grokspace
will provide an online forum for participation
in the discussions and collaborations sponsored
by the institute.

They need participants and they need donations.

A lot of issues were discussed. I'll just post
here some miscellaneous notes:

Space property covers not only real estate
on the Moon or other bodies but also objects
launched into space, e.g. commercial satellites,
and objects returned such as Moon rocks.

Property rights are covered by international
treaties and agreements, customary international
law, and local laws recognized by international
authorities.

There was a lot of discussion of the Outer
Space Treaty (OST). The treaty forbids
states from claiming sovereignty over property
in space and also forbids national appropriation
through "other means", i.e. individuals
can't step into the shoes of states and appropriate
property.

Other parts of the OST are more supportive
of commercial operations. For example, space
exploration and use cannot be restrained
or discriminated against. Ownership of equipment
and facilities is allowed.

Ownership by the US and Russia of rocks
they obtained from the Moon set a precedent
for ownership of other materials returned
from space.

Europeans tend to want the Lunar Embassy
sort of operations to be prosecuted for fraud
rather than taken as a joke.

Some US legislation that clarifies US interpretation
of the treaty might be useful but Dunsten
thought it might cause more harm than good.

An agreement among spacefaring countries
on property rights could also be helpful.
(This would be similar to agreements among
countries doing deep-sea mining.)

General Summary Remarks:

Congratulations to Jeff Feige on a well run and
very interesting and rewarding conference.

As Jeff noted, it was great to see a lot of young
people at an alt.space meeting. He said about 10%
of the participants were students.

A big difference I noticed between this conference
and the Space
Access Society meetings is that this one
focused far more on NASA policy and politics. This
isn''t a criticism. Many space advocates have long
said that NASA's role is to focus on the frontier
edge and the Moon is certainly where that lies at
the moment. The space entrepreneurs, who are represented
heavily at the SAS meetings, can focus on suborbital
and earth-to-LEO transport.

...Jim
Muncy gave a brief but interesting summary yesterday
of how he sees the situation with US space policy. He
saw Shank's presentation as an indication that the long
battle by the entrepreneurial space community to get
commercial spaceflight companies welcomed as partners
in space development has been won. However, winning
a battle can actually mean tougher consequences than
losing since now comes the challenge of fulfilling that
partnership successfully.

Getting another "big idea" accepted is also
making progress. Large scale space settlement must become
the primary goal of the space program. No Antarctica-like
outposts on the Moon but Las Vegas-es instead. Griffin,
in fact, stated in testimony to Congress that human
expansion into the solar system is his long term vision
for space policy. However, this big idea is still foreign
to many at NASA, in Congress, the press and the general
public.

Muncy believes the advocacy community should concentrate
its fight on these battles of the big ideas rather than
over the details of particular projects like the Heavy
Lift Vehicle and whether it will be derived from the
shuttle. If the war of big ideas is won, it will become
much easier to fight for the optimum hardware to implement
those ideas.

9:20 am (Pacific Time): Return
to the Moon: update ... Michael Mealling
has posted the presentation given by Brant Sponberg
yesterday: Innovative
Programs announcements - Rocketforge - July.22.05.
The image on the posting shows the particular slide
I mentioned yesterday that outlines the areas where
NASA will use service agreements and prizes to encourage
development progress.

July
22, 2005

6:25 pm (Pacific Time): Return
to the Moon: update ... Another impressive
day at the RTTM meeting. Way too much material to cover
here before I head to the conference banquet. I'll just
hit some high spots. See Michael Mealling's RTTM
VI Day 2 posting for pictures and more comments.

One of the major presentations
of the day was given my Chris Shank, special
advisor to the NASA Administrator. He began with a
general outline of the NASA exploration program and
showed a multi-year 2-D timeline chart. He stated
flatly that the goals shown on the chart could not
be accomplished if NASA continued "business as
usual". Only with substantial innovation in the
way NASA implements the plan and with far greater
involvement of commercial companies will the goals
be met.

Opening ISS cargo delivery to commercial services
looks to play an important part in making the plan
affordable and sustainable.

That was the good news. The bad news (in my opinion)
is that he made it clear that a shuttle derived launcher
for the CEV and a heavy lifter will almost certainly
be included in the grand exploration scheme.

I think Jeff Foust will provide a detailed review
of Shank's talk in the Space Review either this Monday
or the next.

Brant also reviewed NASA's
plans for the Innovative
Partnership Programs (IPP) . He showed a chart
that began with Suborbital in the bottom left
corner and ended with Small Lunar Transport
in the top right. In between were categories like
Low Cost Earth-to-Orbit, Re-entry, and
Crew Transport. Each came with a set of goals
that NASA hopes to achieve with the partners. NASA
will manage the partnerships with service procurements,
"Other Transaction Authority" (OTA), and
prizes. (I hope to get a link to this slide if I can
find it online.)

The suborbital category goals included services hired
for micro-gravity experiments and technology payloads.
Prize competitions will be held in the areas of altitude
and reusability for science experiments and development
of VTVL prototypes for lunar landers.

... Lots of presentations
on various business models for lunar technologies and
development. Lots of discussions on NASA policy. I'll
try to review these next week if Jeff or someone else
doesn't in the meantime. ...

This is my first RTTM meeting but I heard that this
one is the second biggest ever in terms of registered
participants. There are also a number of NASA and major
aerospace company reps, which is apparently new. Several
participated in the sessions.

Most of the sessions are panel discussions rather than
individual presentations. There are brief overviews
from each panelist and then a Q&A. This is good
in that a lot of ground is covered but I wish some of
the speakers had more time to give a longer account
of their projects.

I don't have time to review each session, so I'll just
give some random items:

Rick Tumlinson got things
started with one of his usual rousing sermons on the
need for commercial space development. I liked his
analogy of Apollo to the Viking activity in the New
World. Neither managed to set up a viable, commercial
settlement worth fighting to maintain and so the initial
effort was quickly abandoned. Top

How Do We Get To the Moon?
(Earth - Orbit) - A session on earth-to-LEO transportation
included Debra Lapore of Kistler.
She gave the usual info on Kistler: the K-1 is 75%
complete, they will compete for ISS cargo delivery
and use that to raise the money to finish the K-1.
One thing new that I saw was a graphic with an image
of a heavy lift version of the K-1 with a cluster
of first stage boosters. (I assume all are reusable.)

Charles Lauer of Rocketplane
talked briefly about their suborbital vehicle and
said they were on track for test flights in late 2006.
He then showed some graphics depicting a 2nd gen system
that could be used to compete for the Bigelow Prize.
It looked similar to the original orbital Rocketplane
concept of a first stage fueled in-flight but it had
a reusable manned second stage.

At the end of the day, Bretton
Alexander, VP of t/Space and a former administration
official who helped craft the VSE, discussed the project
as well. Unlike Kistler, t/Space will not try to develop
their system with commercial money but will seek a
fixed-cost contract, milestone payment approach with
NASA. Alexander said that for human spaceflight there
is no current commercial market and it would not be
possible to raise $400M to develop a vehicle to serve
an unproved market. Instead, they see the CXV as serving
a specific NASA crew delivery requirement. Once the
CXV is flying, they will spin off a commercial version
to help develop the orbital space tourism market.

How Do We Get To the Moon?
(Cis-Lunar) - A session on LEO-to-the-Moon included
Bruce Pitman of LunarTransportationSystems.com
(affiliated with Spacehab and Kistler), Charles Miller
of CSI,
and Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing. Pitman's talk was quite
similar to that of Tom
Taylor's at SAS'05 and like David
Anderman at SAS'05, Miller reported on
the Lunar
Express. Bienhoff discussed a number of different
lunar transportation architectures that Boeing is
studying, including the use of L1 as a staging area.

In response to a question about lunar transportation
architecture, Lauer had said he favored the "dry
launch" concept (mentioned by Rand
Simberg at SAS'05) in which modules and
fuel are launched separately. Interestingly, Bienhoff
later concurred that this approach would obviate the
need for development of new launchers like the shuttle
derived vehicles.

The other sessions were more directly related to
lunar operations and I will try to come back to them
later, perhaps in a summary next week.